St rmChasers
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Outside, a long siren sounds. On the radio, an announcer says:
“The National Weather Service reports a tornado moving east of
Johnstown at 40 mph.”
If we heard a warning like this, most of us would do what we’re
supposed to do. We would head for shelter indoors. We would retreat
to the basement, or to an interior hallway or room such as a closet,
staying away from windows. We would use blankets or pillows to cover
our bodies and wait for the storm to pass.
But a small group of scientists and researchers would head in the
opposite direction—right toward the storm. These people, known as
storm chasers, pursue tornadoes in specially equipped cars, vans, and
trucks. They hope to arrive in time for the worst of the weather, so that
they can collect as much information about the storm as possible.
30Lesson
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Other storm trackers stay closer to home. These
trained volunteers, known as storm spotters, keep a
close watch on the weather in their own community. They
pass along storm information to local weather agencies.
Sometimes even sophisticated radar devices don’t pick up
storms, and the trained eye of the storm spotters can help
to save lives. Listen closely to weather reports on your
local TV stations and you may hear the forecasters talk
about reports they receive from storm spotters.
Tornadoes can strike at any time of year in the
United States, but they are generally most common
from late winter through mid-summer.
Tornadoes, like this one near Gruver, Texas, usually form in a large area of the U.S. called Tornado Alley, located between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains.
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Storm chasers don’t just follow tornadoes. Hurricane hunters take
special training to fly planes right into the center of hurricanes and
other severe tropical storms.
Outside, heavy rain and high winds batter the aircraft. Inside, the
noise is deafening. Despite the roar and the roller coaster ride, the crew
carefully collects information on temperature, air pressure, wind speed,
and wind direction. This information will be used to help predict the size,
strength, and path of the storm.
After flying through the solid ring of thunderstorms that make
up the wall of the hurricane, the plane enters a place of near-silence—
the eye of the hurricane. Sometimes in this calm center, the hurricane
hunters see blue sky, sun, and even stars. But the plane still has to go
back through the menacing storm before returning home. In fact, most
hurricane hunters make at least four trips through the storm before
returning to land!
The hurricane season runs from about June through November in
the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
Hurricane Hunters
A hurricane seen from space.
A Hercules weather airplane gets ready.
Both the U.S. Air Force and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fly missions into storms over the ocean waters.
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Roger Jensen, a North Dakotan, is believed to have been
the first storm chaser. “I was born loving storms,” he once said.
Jensen began chasing storms in 1953 and continued to do so for
the next forty years. During his lifetime he took thousands of
pictures of storms.
A scientist named Howard Bluestein had an early introduc-
tion to storms. In 1954, when Bluestein was five, a hurricane blew
the shingles off the roof of his family’s house. When he grew up
he decided to make storm study his life’s work. Today, Bluestein
studies storms as a researcher and professor of meteorology at
the University of Oklahoma. The movie Twister was inspired in
part by Bluestein’s work.
Hurricane hunting began in World War II, when a
U.S. Air Force training aircraft flew into the eye of
a hurricane on a dare. To prove his plane’s strength,
American pilot Colonel Joseph Duckworth told
the British that he could fly into the eye of a
hurricane. After doing so, Duckworth
pioneered the science of hurricane hunting.
Pioneers of Storm Chasing
Storm Chasers in Kansas
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Being in a severe storm is dangerous. Storm chasers can be struck
by flying debris or by baseball-sized hail. They can be trapped by flash
floods or downed power lines. Fortunately, most professional storm
chasers keep a safe distance from the deadly storm center—usually
one to two miles. They respect the power of the storm.
Lightning is also a great risk to storm chasers. Lightning strikes
injure scores of people each year. The risk rises for storm chasers, who
spend more time than the average person in the most extreme weather
that Mother Nature serves up.
But the riskiest part of storm chasing is actually driving to the
storm. Crashes happen because drivers are hurrying to reach the heart
of the storm and are looking at the sky instead of the road ahead of
them. Blowing dust, heavy rain and fog, hail, skidding on wet pavement,
running out of gas, and getting stuck in mud can also make the chase
difficult and dangerous.
Hail, Lightning, Winds, and . . . Traffic Accidents?
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Hurricane hunters face a different set of risks because they
are flying an airplane through the most powerful part of a storm.
Violent winds can shake the plane severely, making it difficult to fly.
Equipment inside the plane can get tossed around, causing possible
injury. The wind can also damage the aircraft, and a sudden blast
can send a plane plunging into the ocean.
Storm spotting and storm chasing should never be done with-
out proper training, experience, and equipment. Hurricane hunting
is an activity for experts. For most of us, the best way to experi-
ence storm chasing is by watching a TV documentary or movie! As
long as there are storm chasers filming the most dramatic weather
events, we can sit in the safety of our homes and movie theaters
and comfortably experience nature at its wildest.
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